The present invention relates to a carton and a blank for forming the carton for containing a plurality of articles and in particular to a carton, the capacity of which can be increased to accommodate additional items.
Cartons for encasing multiple articles are useful for enabling consumers to obtain and transport a desired quantity of individual articles such as soft drinks or other beverages. Such cartons need to be strong enough to support multiple articles, especially if the articles are bottles. It is also desirable for such cartons to be easy to handle and portable. It is also useful for the consumer to be able to add ice-cubes into such a carton in order to cool the beverage cans or bottles contained within the carton. It is therefore desirable for such cartons to be substantially water resilient so that once the ice-cubes have melted the carton structure remains substantially intact and does not allow the water to readily leak from the carton. It is also often desirable for the cartons to be adaptable so that the capacity of the carton can be increased to accommodate the addition of ice-cubes.
Such cartons are known in the art, one such carton is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,631,803, which provides a beverage cooler box for bottles which is intended to receive ice cubes and is made of a material which is impervious to liquid. However, the carton of U.S. Pat. No. 6,631,803 does not provide a means for increasing the capacity of the carton to accommodate the addition of ice cubes and so the carton is limited in the number of ice cubes which it can receive.
A carton for packaging articles having additional side and end panels which can be unfolded to provide additional capacity to the carton is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,020,337. In U.S. Pat. No. 5,020,337 the carton comprises an array of panels to fully enclose the bottom to maintain a water tight base, a series of side and end walls, additional panels to extend the size of the carton and two top panels. Whilst U.S. Pat. No. 5,020,337 provides a carton which can accommodate the addition of ice cubes and maintain a water tight base, a considerable quantity of material is required to form the carton. Furthermore the structure and arrangement of the water tight base of the carton disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,020,337 limits the carton to being top loaded and it is often desirable for cartons to be end loaded. It is also often desirable for the blanks from which such cartons are constructed to be symmetrical as the blanks can be erected in a straight line machine and are not necessarily required to be rotated during the construction process, this is not the case with the blank of U.S. Pat. No. 5,020,337.
It is therefore an objective of the present invention to provide a carton and blank for forming the carton, that overcomes or at least reduces the problems of the abovementioned prior art.